This summer Duncan Dyason and Steve Poulson achieved their goal of walking 100km in one day in Central America!

The Camino por Amor walk started in 2016 when Duncan walked the 1,400km from Costa Rica to Guatemala to raise funds for the projects Street Kids Direct supports in Guatemala and Honduras with street-living and high-risk children and youth.

On Saturday 12th August 2017 Duncan walked 100km in Guatemala and Steve 100km in Honduras. The challenge was tough as neither Steve nor Dunc had walked this far before and in training walks both could only attempt 60km.

On the day the weather was good to both who were joined by 50-60 walkers throughout the day.

Steve and his team in Honduras managed the walk 16 minutes faster than Dunc and his team in Guatemala but Steve agreed that if he had to face the grueling walk up the mountains of Guatemala then Duncan would have finished at least an hour earlier. Both took 18 hours to walk the 100km with breaks every 10km for stretching and refreshments.

Thanks to all those who sponsored the event and helped raise just over £6,500 for the charity with Gift Aid (UK tax) included. Thanks also for the many messages on the giving page and on Facebook before, during and after the event as they were of great encouragement to Dunc and Steve.

Stay tuned for more information on Radio Christmas about next year´s challenge!

Street Kids Direct works in partnership with the Mi Arca project in Guatemala City and two years ago we launched a specialist mentoring programme to help support the most vulnerable children who are in the process of being abandoned or are at very high social risk of living on the streets.

During the last two years we have discovered that for a small group of children in the programme it is often necessary to offer them emergency accommodation during the week due to the precarious nature of their lives.

This situation led us to explore the option of having a boarding house, which we are calling a Protection home, that will offer the most vulnerable children a safe environment throughout the week. Since all the children have been enrolled in school, as a prerequisite to being in the mentoring programme, we need to give them extra support and protection while they are in the school week. This will mean operating the home on the model of a boarding house where children arrive after school on Monday and stay each day till they go to school on the Friday.

It could be that the home will then offer us the opportunity of organising special weekend retreats and events for other children. We would like to see how the initial phase goes and then evaluate

Alex Rollings and Edward Hinton are cycling 1000 miles from Land´s End to John O´Groats over 12 days in September to raise funds for Street Kids Direct.

The couple started their mammoth cycle ride on 6th September and should finish on the 19th September with the aim to raise £1,000 to help vulnerable children in Central America.

Please do sponsor them and keep a track of their progress via their Facebook page.